Unconquerable Souls
by Taaroko
Summary: Wishverse, sequel to "Windows to the Soul." With the help of the White Hats, Buffy and Angel have, for the most part, taken Sunnydale back from the monsters. Now, one thing after another keeps coming along to make sure they can't enjoy the fruits of their labors, from a lengthy Council inspection, to the fine print of Angel's curse, to the return of Darla.
1. Diagnostics

Written for the 2017 IWRY Marathon, sequel to "Windows to the Soul" from the 2010 IWRY Marathon.

In the first fic, Buffy and Angel survived the battle in the Master's factory because Buffy did a better job of timing her crossbow shot than in canon, and things developed from there. "Unconquerable Souls" picks up a few months after the end of that one, sometime in the spring of '99. You don't necessarily need to read that one first for this one to make sense, but it would probably help.

* * *

Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears  
Looms but the Horror of the shade,  
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate,  
I am the captain of my soul.

—"Invictus," by William Ernest Henley

Angel entered his apartment alone, carrying a plastic sack in one hand. He walked to his fridge without turning on any lights and pulled open the door. The white shelves, bare except for a few containers of pig's blood, seemed to taunt him. He took one of the containers out and set it on the counter, then carefully arranged the fresh ones from the butcher at the back, moving the remaining two from last week to the front. He filled one of his two cheap cooking pots with water from the sink, then turned the stove on and set the pot on a burner.

After bringing the water to a simmer, he lowered the container of pig's blood into it with a pair of metal tongs. He'd done this enough times now that he didn't need a timer or a thermometer to know when the blood's temperature would reach roughly 95°F. When it was ready, he pulled it out of the hot water and poured the contents into a large mug. He took a sip and savored it. Pig's blood might not be all that great compared to human blood, but it was a far cry better than rat, and it actually tasted good when it was reheated.

Two weeks ago, there had barely been room for blood in his fridge next to the assortment of low-fat yogurt containers, soda cans, skim milk cartons, and boxes of leftover Chinese takeout or pizza slices. Two weeks ago, his clothing had shared the space in his wardrobe. His shampoo, soap, and razor had shared the shelf in his shower. His bed had been warm.

Angel brought his mug of blood over to his chair, flicked the lamp on, picked up his sketchbook, and sat down. The sketchbook was full of drawings of Buffy. The first time she'd caught him with his charcoals, she'd been confused and embarrassed. She'd pressed the knuckle of her right forefinger to the scar on her lips—a tick he'd come to recognize as an expression of insecurity. He'd assured her that he couldn't have asked for a more beautiful subject.

He drank the blood and flicked through the sketchbook. Most of the drawings showed Buffy smiling or laughing. It didn't happen often in real life, so he tried to immortalize those moments whenever possible. The sketches still paled in comparison to her actual presence.

The mug was empty and he was about to start working on a new sketch when a sound in the hallway outside the apartment made him freeze. In under a second, he was at the door, hand on the knob. He could hear the heartbeat of the person in the hall. Based on the quality of the sound of the footsteps, he could guess at an adult female of average height and slight build, though possibly carrying something heavy.

He waited until he heard a faint metallic scratching and felt the doorknob shift slightly. Then he jerked the door open, seized the would-be intruder by the throat, and slammed her against the wall to the left of the door. "Who are you?" he snarled. "Why were you trying to break in?"

The woman was in her early thirties, with dark eyes and shoulder-length black hair. She had a bulging bag slung over one shoulder. "Let me go!" she cried, hands tugging uselessly at his fingers. "I'm not here to hurt you!"

"Are you with the Watchers' Council?" said Angel, his grip tightening—not enough to cut off the blood flow to her brain, but enough to significantly increase her panic.

"No! No, my name is Janna Kalderash!"

Angel jerked away from her as if he'd been burned. She stared at him, rubbing her throat, her heart still pounding frantically and her breathing ragged. Neither of them spoke. Angel watched her warily while his insides twisted with guilt, waiting for her to say something. It took her several minutes to get her fear under control. Then she stepped away from the wall and took a deep breath. "I grew up in the U.S. I'm Jenny Calendar here. The elders of my clan back in Romania sent me to California because they fear the curse has been weakening."

"Weakening?" said Angel. It was his turn to be afraid. Did that mean it was possible for him to lose his soul? "Why?"

"I don't know. I'm supposed to try to find out, and then do whatever I can to make sure it doesn't break."

"Is that why you were sneaking in at 8:30 in the morning?"

She averted her eyes, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "There's a spell I was going to try. Sort of a diagnostic. It might not even work, but I was hoping to slip in, cast it on you in your sleep, and then leave before you noticed anything."

"And you couldn't just ask?"

She folded her arms and raised a sardonic eyebrow. "My job is to do recon on the monster my clan swore eternal vengeance against. I was hardly going to call and make an appointment first."

"What, do you think I _want_ to lose my soul?"

"Don't you?"

"Well, I won't deny that it would make things a hell of a lot easier for me, but innocent lives are worth more than my own peace of mind." She looked completely taken aback by this answer. He decided to elaborate, in case she still wasn't convinced. "More than that, there are people here I care about." Their faces flashed through his mind. He swallowed. "If the curse broke, they'd be the first ones I'd go after." Now he was the one who couldn't meet her eyes.

He sensed more than saw the shift in her posture. "Will you let me try the spell?" she asked, slipping her bag off her shoulder.

He looked up at her, surprised at the new absence of hostility in her tone. "Do you need help setting anything up?"

"If you don't mind. It's just some candles and herbs."

They spent the next five minutes arranging all the materials for the spell in the middle of the apartment. When they finished, they sat across from each other on the floor in the center of a circle of white candles, a small altar of incense between them. Jenny was reading silently from the very old, leather-bound book she had open in her lap. When she finished, she looked up at him. "Ready?"

He nodded. She reached across the altar and placed her right hand over his heart and her left against his forehead. Then, she began reading out a passage from the book in a slow, clear voice. The language sounded very similar to Romanian, but it must have been a different dialect, because Angel only understood a few phrases here and there. He got the gist, though; she was asking for the power to see into his soul.

After about a minute, she finished speaking. Confused, he started to ask if it had worked, but before he could utter a syllable, a burning heat ignited in his chest, beneath where Jenny's hand rested. It intensified and expanded until he feared he would burst into flames from the inside. In seconds, it spread through his whole body. He tried to yell, but his throat wouldn't work. Had she really just come here to kill him? He opened his eyes and saw that a blue-white light was coming from inside him, shining out from every inch of his skin. It was bright enough even to glow through his clothing. Then, in an instant, the light and the burning ceased, leaving him blinking in the relative darkness of the light from the lamps and candles.

Jenny sagged forward, her hands falling away from him.

"Did it work?" he asked.

"I guess," said Jenny dryly. "I was hoping for the kind of result I get when I run a diagnostics test on my computer. Seems like this kind of magic isn't that specific."

"Why? What did you find out?"

"It's more like what I saw," she said, now rubbing at her temples. "There were two women, both sorta little, with blonde hair. One was dressed in white and carrying a sword, the other was a vampire, dressed in black."

Angel stood up and retrieved the sketchbook from the lamp table beside his chair, then went to his bookshelf and pulled down another, much older sketchbook. He flipped through the old one until he found what he was looking for. He returned to his seat on the floor across from Jenny and held up both sketchbooks. "Are these the women?"

†

It was still daytime, but Sunnydale's utility tunnels were extensive enough that getting to Willy's bar was a fairly simple task. How the rat-like little man had come out of the two years of the Master's reign alive and with his business still profitable was a mystery Angel preferred not to try to solve. He strode into the main room of the bar. Willy was behind the cash register, counting money. It was after hours, so nobody else was there. Willy didn't look up until Angel was right across the counter from him. Then he swallowed.

"H-how's it going, Angel?" he said.

"Swell, Willy," said Angel, resting his hands on the counter about three feet apart. "I need to know what you've heard lately about new vampires in town."

"Oh," said Willy. "Actually, uh, I-I've been trying to keep my nose out of that stuff lately. Really! I'm a changed man."

"Cut the crap," said Angel. "This place reeks of vampires and demons like it always does." He leaned a few inches closer. Willy leaned back, his heart pounding like a cornered rabbit's.

"Okay, fine," he said. "Look, you didn't hear this from me. There _is_ a vampire operation setting up shop, but the leader ain't exactly new."

"Let me guess," said Angel. He held up a hand to chin height. "About this tall, blonde, dressed to kill, and pissed that the Master's dead?" Willy swallowed hard again, which was all the confirmation Angel needed. "How many guys do you think she's got, and where have they been holing up?"

"There's probably a couple dozen of them. They're out in that old mansion on Crawford Street."

"Thanks, Willy," said Angel with a cold smile. "I don't see why you're always trying to make this so hard."

"I don't like being taken advantage of," said Willy with an attempt at dignity.

"Taken advantage of?" said Angel, feigning offense. "Why would I ever want to take advantage of you?"

"How should I know?" he said, closing the cash register's drawer sulkily. "All I've ever done is try to be a good friend to you."

"I'm sure you have."

"It's God's honest truth," said Willy. "I got nothing but concern for you." He leaned forward. "I heard the Slayer moved out of your place. You two going through a rough patch?"

Angel leveled a flat stare at him, then turned to go. "We're not that good of friends, Willy."

* * *

The summary sort of spoils it, but I meant for the first two scenes to leave it unclear whether Buffy was still alive or not, up until that very last exchange between Angel and Willy.

This fic is complete and I will be posting chapters daily until it's all up.


	2. Inspection

Buffy pressed forward relentlessly, twirling her quarterstaff like a baton. Her opponent managed to hold her off for about twenty seconds before she knocked his knees out from under him, sending him sprawling on the library floor. She lowered the quarterstaff, reached out a hand, and helped him back to his feet. "Good work," she said. "I think that was a personal best."

"Tell that to my tailbone," Larry grumbled.

"Maybe next time you'll be able to beat Oz's record," said Buffy.

Larry turned a scowl on Oz, who was sitting with his feet up on the study table, whittling a stake. "Man, how do you keep beating me?"

"Speed trumps muscle," said Oz, not looking up.

"It's true," said Buffy. "Doesn't matter how powerful your strikes are if you can't get them under your enemy's guard."

"Says the girl with superhuman speed _and_ strength," said Larry.

"You asked me for weapons training," Buffy reminded him. "It's not my fault you weren't emotionally prepared to get your ass handed to you over and over by a girl half your size."

"Hey," said Larry, putting a hand to his chest and making a face as though her words had wounded him deeply, "it is an _honor_ to have my ass handed to me by the girl who killed the Master and took this town back, no matter how tiny she is."

Buffy smiled at him. She'd had her reservations at first about working with the White Hats, but Larry and Oz were alright. "Maybe I _was_ going a little hard on you. I've just been under a lot of pressure lately."

"But that'll be over tonight, right?" said Oz.

"Only if I pass," said Buffy, picking at a few split ends in the tail of her long braid. It was still her favorite hairstyle when she was fighting, though her wardrobe had grown a little more colorful in the last few months.

"You'll pass," said Oz.

"Yeah," said Larry, clapping her encouragingly on the shoulder. "What are they supposed to mark you down for? You've only been enrolled here a month and you're already making better grades than me, you passed all their performance tests, they like your apartment, you work okay with Giles, and Sunnydale definitely still needs you around. I mean, unless in the next few hours, they find out that you were shacking up with Angel before they got here—"

"Larry, shut up!" Buffy hissed, looking wildly around to make sure they were still the only ones in the library. They were, but she didn't completely relax.

"Come on, Larry," said Oz, the slightest hint of a smile on his face. "Don't you know the eleventh hour is always when Murphy's Law goes into effect? Don't help it along."

Larry looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. "But it's 3:30, not eleven."

Buffy and Oz exchanged glances, then quickly looked away from each other. "The point," she said, "is that in a few hours, the Council is going to give their verdict. Even if they approve of me and of you guys helping me fight, everything could still change."

"Or maybe they'll leave and you'll be able to spend tonight celebrating with Angel," said Oz.

Buffy smiled, but it was forced. She was too nervous that something would go wrong. As badly as she missed Angel and as happy as she'd be to leave her brightly lit second-floor apartment for his muted basement-level one, she couldn't feel optimistic.

†

Jenny Calendar was having a very different afternoon than she had expected after coming face to face with the most legendary nemesis of her clan. He was certainly dangerous (she had put on a scarf to hide the purple and blue evidence of it), but he didn't seem to mean any harm beyond what it took to defend what was his. She might've thought it was just an act, but that was before doing the spell. She hadn't told Angelus what she'd seen in addition to the image of the two women battling for his soul; she had also seen that soul itself. It was deeply scarred, weary, and in a great deal of pain, but it was still stronger than the demon.

Her whole life, Jenny had been told that Angelus deserved to suffer for what he'd done to her people. She had accepted it without question. But now…now she was less certain things were that simple. It was the soul that was scarred and in pain, not the demon. The demon was merely restrained. Still, even if the curse had been misguided, she was more determined than ever to make sure she achieved her goal. She absolutely did _not_ want to see that demon untethered.

Her troubled thoughts made it difficult to focus during her interview with Principal Snyder about the open position in Computer Science, but apparently teaching applicants at Sunnydale High had been so few and far between in the last two years that he probably would've hired her even if she'd done "Thriller" on top of his desk and thrown his coffee in his face. By the end of the interview, she sort of wished she had.

She walked out of his office grimacing, uncertain she had made a wise choice in seeking employment here. At almost the same moment that Snyder's door closed behind her, a tall piece of ruggedly handsome wrapped in multiple layers of tweed stepped out of the faculty lounge directly across the hall. Jenny raised an eyebrow and looked him up and down. He was halfway through drinking a steaming cup of something when he spotted her, at which point he choked. She grinned, her lower lip between her teeth to keep herself from laughing.

"I'm sorry," he spluttered. "I don't believe we've met. A-are you one of the parents?" Jenny was delighted to note that he had an English accent to go with the glasses and the tweed. He also had just a hint of salt-and-peppery stubble, and though his eyes were blue, there was a patch of brown in the left iris.

"Actually I'm your newest colleague," said Jenny, sticking out her hand. "Jenny Calendar. Computer science."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Mr. Ruggedly Handsome, shaking her hand. His was large and warm, with a firm grip.

"I certainly hope so," said Jenny with her eyes locked on his, raising the eyebrow again and not immediately letting go of him.

He went pink, ducked his head, and withdrew his hand. "Er, yes, well. I'm Rupert Giles. Librarian."

Jenny's eyes widened, and flirting suddenly dropped a few rungs on her ladder of priorities. "You're the Watcher," she said. "Angelus told me to come find you."

†

"I know you may have found our inspection onerous," said Quentin Travers, "but we needed to assess not only your situation but the volatility of this Hellmouth. It was open for some time when the Master first rose. The fallout, though extensive, was somehow kept under wraps." He glanced over at Giles. "You still don't know how it closed?"

"I'm afraid not," said Giles. "What little evidence I could find suggested dark magic was involved. I suspect whatever closed it didn't care much for the added competition from the creatures that came out."

"Until we can solve this particular mystery, we would be remiss if we removed you from Sunnydale, Miss Summers," said Travers, looking at Buffy again.

"Yes, sir," said Buffy. She wanted to bite her tongue as she said it, but, like she and Giles had discussed, playing the part of the dutiful soldier would be the best way to earn their trust and get them to go away.

"We've been reasonably impressed by your capabilities. Despite a certain amount of insubordination when you were working under Mr. Wyndam-Pryce in Cleveland, you and Mr. Giles appear to have developed an effective partnership. The Council is still uneasy about the involvement of Messrs Osbourne and Blaisdell in your operation, but the circumstances being what they are, it seems it could hardly have been avoided. Both young men should continue to receive proper training."

"Does that mean Giles is my official Watcher now?"

Travers regarded her with a somewhat stern eye. "Yes. We'll want regular reports from him, of course, both on your progress and the situation at large."

Giles muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "After two years, _now_ you've decided to pay attention to my bloody reports?"

Travers either didn't notice or pretended not to. "You'll continue to patrol here and work on discovering who or what closed the Hellmouth," he said. "If we learn of any serious supernatural threats arising elsewhere, we may send you to attend to them, but this will be your base of operations."

"Sounds great," said Buffy.

Travers glanced down at his watch. "Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Summers, Mr. Giles. Now, the rest of the delegation and I have a plane to catch. Good day to you both."

* * *

Jenny's PoV was super fun to write, as was the interplay between Buffy, Oz, and Larry.


	3. Reconnaissance

Angel walked down the stairs to the hallway outside his apartment. Ever since the sun had set, he'd been following Jenny Calendar. It wasn't that he didn't believe what she'd told him. It was that what she'd told him was so horrible that he needed the distraction. He might lose his soul. After a hundred years with nothing to care about, he might lose his soul the first year that changed.

He knew exactly what that would mean. He could almost taste it. Buffy would be his target. He'd pretend nothing was wrong, but then the people she cared about would start disappearing. He'd leave the bodies in strategic places so that she would be the first one to find them every time. She'd come to him in her grief and fear, and he'd play the role of the understanding boyfriend, but he'd be done acting like a gentleman. He would take her in every way imaginable until she forgot about the dead bodies. Until he was the only thing she could think about. Only when she was utterly his would he let her catch him on the hunt, and then she would become the hunted. And that was just one possibility.

Tailing Jenny hadn't provided much of a distraction. She was in the middle of moving into a duplex a couple of blocks from U.C. Sunnydale. All of her stuff fit into a little U-Haul trailer attached to her off-road Jeep. It reminded him of the caravans her ancestors had used. After an hour of bringing in boxes, she'd gotten food from a Chinese place, then resumed unpacking, and he left her to it.

He reached the bottom step outside his door before he heard the heart beating inside his apartment. For a second, he tensed, but a smile tugged at his lips when he caught the familiar scent on the air. He went inside and shut the door behind him. "I thought you were going to call when the Council finally left," he said.

"I thought it'd be more fun to surprise you," said Buffy, standing up from his kitchen chair and walking over, her hands behind her back. Her hair hung loose and wavy, and she was wearing a green long-sleeved shirt and tan cargo pants. He loved that color of green on her. Well, he loved just about any color on her, after that first month of nothing but gray, but this shade matched her eyes. "They want me to stay in Sunnydale, with Giles as my Watcher."

"And they don't know about us?"

"Nope," said Buffy. She was right in front of him now. Her hands found his, then slid along his arms until they rested on his chest. "God, Angel, do you have any idea how many times I nearly cracked and called you, or came over here? Those were the longest two weeks of my life."

He reached up to touch her cheek. "Mine too," he said. "I filled up the rest of the sketchbook."

A full smile broke out over her face. "Was that enough small talk?" Her heart pounded faster.

"I think so," he said. They both moved at the same time. It was no sweet, quick little reunion kiss; they were like two starving people who had found a banquet after wandering in the desert for weeks. She had her arms wrapped around his neck and her legs around his waist. He slipped his hands up the back of her shirt, her skin searing him with delicious heat. She'd never been this aggressive before. It had taken so long for the hardened shell around her emotions to crumble away at first, and after the way she'd reacted that first time he kissed her neck, he'd always tried to keep things as chaste as possible, never pushing her boundaries or doing anything she wasn't completely ready for. Now, they were flying past all the old caution signs, and he very much doubted he'd be able to stop.

"I don't want to spend…another night…in that damn apartment," said Buffy between kisses. "I'll just go back…tomorrow to get my stuff."

Crap. He was going to have to break the perfect moment after all. He pulled back before she could kiss him again, and forced himself to look into her eyes. "I'm not sure now is the best time for you to move back in."

Success. Perfect moment broken. She unwrapped herself from around him and dropped back down. "How come?" she asked indignantly.

Angel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "A woman from the Gypsy clan that cursed me came here today. She said the curse is weakening."

Buffy's eyes widened in horror, and she took a step back. "What? How is that possible?"

"We don't know. Until we do…"

"You don't want to risk having me so close all the time," Buffy finished bitterly. "It's always something, isn't it?"

"We might have a lead, though," said Angel, closing the distance and touching her face again. She didn't turn away, which he found encouraging.

"What is it?"

"Willy says Darla's back in town."

"Your sire?" said Buffy, eyes flashing.

Angel nodded. "She might be the threat to my curse."

†

Darla regarded the red brick house in front of her with amusement. If a dark witch was going to choose a suburban home to live in, then this would be the one. The flowerbeds and trees were overgrown, the bricks were slightly uneven and rough, and the windows had that antique diamond lattice pattern that always looked simultaneously elegant and austere, not to mention the demon face on the gate. She knocked on the door. An auburn-haired woman who was a few inches taller than Darla answered. "Who are you?" she asked timidly. She looked perfectly healthy, but gave off a faint rotting smell.

"Mom, I'll handle this," came another voice from inside. The woman looked rather frightened, and then a girl in a cheerleading uniform with honey-blonde hair took her place. She had the same odd smell, and Darla's curiosity was piqued. The only time she'd smelled anything like that from humans was when the humans in question had been leprous or suffering some similar disease, but neither of these women looked sick at all. "Are you Darla?" said the cheerleader after her mother was out of sight.

"I am," said Darla. "Are you Amy Madison?"

"I'm Amy," said the girl, her eyes dancing with wicked laughter. "But before we talk about that little deal your minion approached me with, I want to know how you found out about me."

"Hellmouths don't just close on their own," said Darla. "You helped the Mayor close it after the Master rose. The Master raged about it for weeks. He wanted the blood of whoever took away his hell on earth."

"So your Master killed the Mayor when he found out it was him."

Darla smirked. "He kept his head on a spike beside his throne until all the flesh had rotted off."

"Why not come after me for my part in it?"

"In case we ever needed a powerful witch, of course," said Darla, raising an eyebrow.

Amy's eyes narrowed. "How do I know you'll hold up your end of the deal? How do I know this wasn't just a trick to tie up loose ends, and the second I step outside, you won't break my neck?"

"You've had the book with the ritual to study for weeks," said Darla. "But if you need more persuading..." She pulled a large, polished black stone with gold and red flecks from her bag.

"Nuummite," said Amy, her eyes wide and hungry. She reached out to take the rare, powerful spell-casting focus, but Darla snatched it back, clearing her throat.

"Back at the mansion, I also have the tanzanite, tourmaline, ocean jasper, and yellow fluorite you requested. They're all yours...once you finish casting my spell."

"Fine," said Amy coldly. "Take me to the mansion."

†

This was not how Buffy had hoped her night would go. Instead of getting thoroughly reacquainted with Angel and/or moving back in with him, she was doing recon. Angel was with her, of course, but with a lot of annoying space and layers of clothing between them. Together, they were creeping up to the mansion on Crawford Street. Buffy found it very galling that Darla would have chosen this location as her base of operations. It had been hers and Angel's once. Granted, that was before she trusted him and knew about his soul, so it didn't actually rate all that high on the sentimentality scale, but it still grated to know that it was now in the possession of his ex.

They made it all the way to the side of the building without encountering any vampires. "What can you hear?" Buffy whispered to Angel.

"One, maybe two guards," he said. He frowned, cocking his head a little to the side. "I think I hear a heartbeat."

"So they've got a live one on tap in there?" said Buffy.

"Best case scenario," said Angel.

"Looks like this mission just went from recon to search and rescue."

"You want cleanup or retrieval?"

"Retrieval. These guys might not know you; you'll be more likely to have the element of surprise than a human attacker."

Angel nodded. "The heartbeat's coming from the second floor. Want a boost?"

"Sounds good." They edged along the wall until they were right under one of the second floor windows, which was about fifteen feet up. It was closed but had a good amount of sill in front of it. Angel held out both hands cupped together. Buffy placed a foot in them and braced her hands against his shoulders, facing away from the mansion.

"One…two…three!" Buffy jumped and Angel heaved upward. She flew silently through the night air, did a back flip at the top of the arc, and landed just where she'd wanted, balanced on the window ledge. She gave Angel the thumbs up and watched him melt into the shadows around the side of the mansion, then turned carefully around to find out what kind of an obstacle this window was going to be, and what was on the other side.

The window looked in on one of the upstairs bedrooms. A dark shape lay on the bare, ratty mattress inside. Buffy rapped her knuckles lightly against the glass. She didn't want to risk breaking it until she knew Angel had already started fighting the guards. The shape shifted, and a head moved into the shaft of moonlight steaming across the foot of the bed. It was a girl, probably no older than Buffy. At the sight of Buffy standing on the sill, her mouth fell open.

Buffy waved, put a finger to her lips, then gestured at the window, hoping the girl would understand she wanted her to open it. The girl cast a glance at the door to the bedroom, then raised her hand and muttered something. The window shot open, even though the girl was still yards away on the bed. Buffy was so shocked by her method of opening the window that she nearly lost her balance for a second, but then she jumped inside, landing lightly on the floor.

"Who a-a-are you?" the girl whispered. She had a bit of a stutter.

"I'm Buffy. I'm gonna get you out of here."

"You c-can't," said the girl, looking desperate. "Th-they broke my leg so I wouldn't be able to escape."

"Don't worry about it," said Buffy. "I'm a Vampire Slayer, so I'm pretty strong. Are you a witch?" In other circumstances, she probably would've asked this question in a much less friendly tone, but the vampires wouldn't have broken her leg if she was on their side.

"Yeah," she said. "That's why-why they abducted me but didn't kill me."

"What do they need a witch for?" said Buffy.

"I don't kn-know."

"What's your name?"

"T-tara Maclay. I was on a college visit at UC Sunnydale when they grabbed me."

†

"I hate guard duty," one of the vampires was saying to the other. They were standing on either side of the door inside the courtyard. One had curly black hair, the other had tattoos on his bald scalp. Both were in vampface. Angel doubted either of them had been a vampire for more than a decade.

"You and me both," said Curls. "Everyone else gets to hunt, but even though there's a perfectly good human up there, we can't even have one bite."

"'The witch is no good to me if she's too weak to use her powers,'" said Tattoos in a shrill, mocking voice Angel guessed was his impression of Darla. She would've staked him if she'd heard it. Angel thought it wasn't half bad. "What the hell does she need a witch for, anyway?"

Angel chose that moment to make his presence known. "I don't know about the witch, but I'm pretty sure the reason for having two _guards_ is so that one can watch the back door while the other takes the front. Darla's not going to be happy about this."

Curls and Tattoos both jumped, then snarled. "Get lost, pal. You're not part of this nest."

"You sure about that?" said Angel. "Darla and I go way back. How do you think she'll react when I tell her that not only were you standing around complaining about her during your shift, but you didn't even show any hospitality to her old friend."

They exchanged nervous glances. "Who are you?" said Tattoos.

Angel shifted so that the stakes up his coat's sleeves slipped down into his hands. "The name's Angelus," he said, and staked both of them before they had time to react.

Then he ran inside and up the stairs. He found Buffy supporting the weight of a girl with light brown hair, whose right leg was plainly broken. When the girl looked up and saw him coming, she inhaled sharply and clutched at Buffy.

"The guards?" said Buffy.

"Dust," said Angel.

The girl with the broken leg went from afraid to confused. "Wait, are you w-working together?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "It's cool; Angel's on our side. Angel, meet Tara. Tara, meet Angel."

"We should get out of here in case anyone else comes back from the hunt," said Angel. He stepped closer to Tara. "We'll be able to move fastest if I carry you. Would that be alright?"

She stared at him so intently that he felt like she was x-raying him. All traces of confusion and fear now vanished from her, replaced by amazement. "You have a soul," she said. "I can see it."

"That's great," said Buffy. "But we still need to get out of here."

"O-oh," said Tara, blushing a little. "Of course. You c-can carry me."

Angel put one arm around her shoulder, then carefully swept the other behind her knees, trying to jostle the broken leg as little as possible. She gasped with pain, but soon she was settled relatively comfortably against his chest, her arms around his neck. Buffy led the way out.


	4. Happiness

When Darla and Amy arrived at the mansion, it was to find two piles of ash on either side of the entrance and no young witch lying hobbled upstairs. Darla was furious, but because the guards were already dead, there was no one to take it out on, and she was reduced to punching through the mantelpiece.

"I thought you said you had everything we needed," said Amy, folding her arms across her chest. "Where's the other witch who's supposed to help with the ritual?"

"Gone," said Darla through clenched teeth. "And I think I know who took her. We won't be getting her back tonight."

"And you didn't have a backup plan?" said Amy scornfully.

"Keep pushing it and I'll decide to tie up that loose end you mentioned earlier," said Darla.

"It's fine," said Amy, smirking. " _I_ know someone else we can use."

†

Angel followed Buffy into the library, still carrying the young witch. Giles and Jenny Calendar were inside, sitting at the study table and in deep conversation. When they saw who had arrived, they both leapt to their feet.

"Either of you know how to bind a broken leg?" said Buffy.

"Well, it was years ago, but I did take a first aid class in college," said Jenny, hurrying over to take a closer look at Tara's injured limb. "Rupert, does the nurse's office have crutches and stuff to make a splint?"

"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?" said Giles. Angel noted his rising color with amusement. He'd never seen anyone get a blush out of the cynical Englishman before.

"Darla and her minions captured Tara because they wanted to use her to do some kind of spell," said Buffy. "She'll be safer if she sticks with us for now."

Angel carefully set Tara in one of the chairs, then moved a second chair so that she could her stretch her right calf across the seat. She gave him a pained but grateful smile, which he returned, squeezing her hand. He felt rather protective of her, even after such a short time. She reminded him of his sister.

"Well then what about taking her home where vampires can't reach her?"

"I'm n-not from here," said Tara, grimacing. "I flew in from Louisiana for a c-college visit."

"Very well," Giles relented. "I'll see what I can find in the nurse's office."

"You must be the Gypsy," said Buffy to Jenny. "Have you figured out more about what's threatening Angel's soul?"

"You must be the Slayer," said Jenny archly. "Not yet."

"Something's threatening h-his soul?" said Tara, shooting Angel a concerned look.

"Apparently," said Jenny.

"Then maybe I can help," said Tara. "I w-want to."

"Just as long as you're up to it," said Buffy.

Giles returned from his office with the materials Jenny had requested before long, and she set about binding Tara's leg. "Angel, while you're here, I believe we could use your linguistic skills," he said. He picked up a sheet of paper off the study table and handed it to him. It was a list of books, most of which had foreign titles. "All of these books pertain, at least in part, to souls and related magics. Would you mind gathering them off the shelves and helping us look through them?"

"Sure," said Angel.

"I'll help you," said Buffy, seizing his hand and tugging him into the stacks, not that he put up any resistance. Once they were concealed from view of the other three, Buffy pulled his face to hers and began kissing him with about the same level of enthusiasm as she had at the apartment.

"Shouldn't—we—be helping—with—the research?" he managed to ask between kisses, though very halfheartedly.

Buffy pulled back and gave him a stern look. "Once you and Giles start researching together, you'll be all one-track-mind about it for hours, so I'm taking what I can get now, especially if you're not letting me go back to the apartment with you."

Angel wasn't going to argue with that.

†

Tara tentatively eased her weight onto the crutches, swinging her left leg. The process of Jenny putting the splint on had not been a pleasant one, but now that her calf was firmly immobilized, the pain level was significantly lower. "Thank you," she said. "It's-it's a lot better."

"I'm just glad I remembered enough of what I learned in that class to help," said Jenny. She looked around at Giles. "Are they still not back with those books?"

Giles shot an exasperated glance at the spot where Buffy and Angel had disappeared at least ten minutes ago. "I'll go get them."

"I can do it," said Tara. "I n-need to get used to using these." She swung forward on the crutches and headed for the short flight of steps leading up to the stacks, which she navigated somewhat awkwardly by hopping on her left foot.

Several rows into the stacks, Tara felt heat creep over her face as she realized that she could hear sighs, heavy breathing, and smacking lips. She suddenly regretted volunteering to fetch her rescuers, but she wouldn't turn back now. She rounded the end of the next bookcase and got an eyeful of the most passionate makeout session she'd ever seen (not that she'd seen many). But that wasn't the only thing she saw.

For as long as she could remember, well before her other magical talents presented themselves, Tara had been able to see the auras of the people around her. With only a little concentration and effort, she could read their emotions and something of their intentions, and quickly take the measure of them. It hadn't exactly been a benefit growing up with her family, and she was terrified of the fate that awaited her in two years, but right now, she was grateful for it. When she'd first seen Angel's aura at the mansion, she had been shocked. Normally, a vampire's aura was like a black hole. She could feel the evil and the bloodlust radiating from the demon from feet away. Being trapped in a house of vampires had been nightmarish even before they broke her leg after her first and only escape attempt. That black hole was there in Angel's aura, but it wasn't the whole thing. There was also a bluish-white light, bound to the black hole with silver cords. The ravenous demon was still there, but it wasn't in control.

What made Tara pause when she found Buffy and Angel kissing each other for dear life were the changes she saw now. The bluish-white light in Angel's aura and the golden light of Buffy's were much brighter than they had been in the mansion. The auras of people experiencing joy and love were always brighter. That alone would have been nothing remarkable. However, the silver cords binding the two halves of Angel's together now appeared to be fraying under the pressure of the growing light.

She cleared her throat loudly, and Buffy and Angel jumped apart. The lights instantly dimmed, flashing red with embarrassment, and the silver cords seemed to recover. "Giles sent me to find you. I'm sorry I interrupted."

"It's okay," said Buffy shakily. "We lost track of time."

"I'll get the books and be out in a minute," said Angel.

Tara nodded and headed back for the study area, a pit in her stomach. When Mr. Giles and Miss Calendar came into view, his aura was as red as Buffy and Angel's had been, and hers sparkled yellow with delight and amusement. Tara was sorry to put an end to their flirting, but this was important. "I think I fi-figured out what the threat to Angel's soul is," she said. They both turned to face her. "And it's not Darla."

†

Buffy and Angel emerged from the stacks to find Tara, Giles, and Jenny all waiting for them with somber expressions. "What's wrong?" said Buffy, setting her armload of books on the table. Angel did the same.

"Tara just presented us with a theory about Angel's soul, and I believe she may be right," said Giles.

"Hu-human souls aren't meant to be attached to dead bodies," said Tara. "They repel each other like matching poles on magnets. That's why vampires don't have souls."

"The curse my people did tied Angel's human soul to his body, forcing those matching poles together against nature," said Jenny. "And normally, that's enough to keep it there."

"Normally?" said Buffy.

"What are you saying?" said Angel.

"The problem is that the curse was calibrated to bind a soul weakened by guilt and misery," said Giles. "Happy souls that love and are loved are rather more powerful. At a point, too powerful to be bound by such magics. And what makes Angel happiest is..."

"Buffy," said Angel simply. He sank unsteadily into an empty chair.

"But Angel doesn't want to lose his soul!" she said angrily, laying a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was somewhere between protective and possessive. She refused to accept that what they had—the deep bond that had made her happy to be alive for the first time since becoming the Slayer—was the very thing that could take the man she loved away from her and leave a monster in his place.

"It's not about what Angel wants," said Jenny. "It's about the natural state of a soul. I don't think my people believed it would be possible for him to find love and happiness when they designed the curse, but I do think this is the danger I was sent to thwart."

"Is there a way to fix it?" Buffy demanded. She glanced at Angel. By the expression on his face, he seemed a thousand miles away, and she was afraid that he might just accept that they couldn't risk being together anymore. She sure as hell wasn't going to accept it.

"Perhaps," said Giles. "But soul magic is dangerous. We'll have to be very careful."

"And there's still the matter of Darla and whatever she's planning," said Jenny. "The diagnostic showed me her too, not just Buffy."

†

Darla had watched with a slight scowl as Amy set up for the ritual. That witch really thought highly of herself. Even if the ritual worked, she was going to have to be taught a lesson. Just when she was lighting the final candle, the doors flew open, bringing a gust of wind that made all the little flames gutter. Two vampires entered, hauling a dark-haired boy wearing black clothes, black lipstick, and a large quantity of black jewelry. He was struggling, but ineffectively. "This the warlock you wanted us to bring you, boss? He tried to hex us when we grabbed him."

"That's him," said Amy before Darla could speak. Darla's lip curled.

"Anything else?" said Darla. "Or can you get started already?"

"That's everything," said Amy. She smirked at the warlock boy. "You'd better give me your best effort, Michael. If these vampires don't get what they want, I won't be able to guarantee your safety."

"Do you need a reminder of your position here, witch?" said Darla. "His safety isn't something you have any say over."

"Do you want me to start the ritual or not?" Amy shot back. Darla didn't speak, but growled furiously. "That's what I thought," said Amy.

†

Buffy pushed open the door of the hated second floor apartment, then held it for Tara to enter on her crutches.

"A-are you sure it's okay for me to take the bed?"

"Of course," said Buffy. She liked Tara. The girl was too nice by half, she'd delivered some of the worst news Buffy had ever heard, and anyone who wanted to attend college on a Hellmouth was definitely insane, but it was still impossible not to like her. "I'm not gonna make you sleep on the couch with a broken leg. Wanna order Chinese takeout? I don't really cook."

Tara was fine with that, so they ordered, and Buffy set up her makeshift bed on the couch while they waited for the food to arrive.

"I'm sorry," Tara said, breaking a ten-minute silence.

"For what?" said Buffy.

"That A-angel's curse is the way it is. He deserves better. You both do."

"How would you know what we deserve?" said Buffy, though not rudely. "You just met us two hours ago."

"Anyone who can find happiness in this world deserves it. Esp-especially people who risk their lives to make it safer for the rest of us."

"A few months ago, I didn't think happiness was something I'd ever have again. I was just here to fight and die, and then the next girl would get her turn fighting and dying. Angel changed everything." She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "If I'm the threat to his soul because I love him and make him happy, then what's the point of any of it? Maybe it would've been better if you hadn't found out and the curse ran its course."

"D-don't say that!" said Tara, laying a gentle hand on her arm. "I kn-know things look bad for now, but we'll find a way to fix it."

Buffy looked at her. Her throat felt tight. "I hope so. I can't go back to the way things were before."

†

Angel returned to the basement apartment alone. Even though he'd been living like this for weeks, Buffy's absence had never felt so profound. Every other time he'd come here without her, it had been because they were still waiting for the Council to leave so things could go back to normal. What fools they'd been, dancing on the edge of a cliff without even realizing it.

He couldn't see a way around this new obstacle. It wasn't as if he could simply make himself less happy in Buffy's presence or love her less, and he wouldn't ruin her happiness by making her fret over the state of his curse whenever they were together. And magic? Magic had never done him any favors before. It seemed unlikely it would start now.

Barely conscious of what he was doing, he seized the end table where he'd left his sketchbooks and hurled it across the apartment with a roar of frustration. It hit the wall next to the refrigerator with a bang, two of the legs breaking off on impact, and loose sheets of paper flew everywhere.

"My my, it's been a long time since I saw you lose your temper, Angelus."

Angel spun around. "Darla." She was standing next to his wardrobe with an attitude like she owned the place, wearing a deep crimson knee-length Mandarin dress with slits almost to the tops of her thighs and matching lipstick and heels. It certainly suited her better than the Catholic schoolgirl getup from two years ago.

"It's good," she went on. "That redheaded bitch was creative, but no amateur was ever going to break my boy."

"Why did you come back?" said Angel. "I thought you stormed off in a huff after the Master gave me to Willow instead of you."

"Oh, I always intended to come back," said Darla, sauntering closer. "I didn't expect that the Master and his new little pets would all be dead when I did, though. And I've been hearing the most fascinating rumors since I arrived. The great Angelus has been living like a human and helping the Slayer kill his own kind. I thought it couldn't possibly be true. Even with a soul, you would never stoop that low." She came to a halt with one of her stilettos at the edge of a sketch of Buffy where it had come to rest on the floor. "I guess I was wrong. I think I'd like to meet this Slayer of yours."

Angel smirked. "Then you'll go the same way as the Master. Won't that be fun to watch?" It was probably a moot point with all the sketches there for her to see, but he was trying not to let on exactly how much Buffy meant to him. No need for Darla to make this more personal than she already was.

"It hurts that you can be so casual about the idea of my death, after all our time together," she said, matching his smirk with one of her own. "But I can overlook it. You'll come around to my way of thinking soon enough."

Angel did not like the calm confidence she radiated. It was as if Tara's rescue hadn't interfered with her plans at all. "Is there some kind of a point to this visit?" he asked.

"There's always a point, Angelus," she said, sidling right up to him, sliding a hand along his stomach just below his ribs, and continuing on, giving him a clear view of the way the dress left most of her back bare. She glanced at him over her shoulder. "This visit was a test. You passed."

She showed herself out without a backward glance, leaving a very uneasy Angel in her wake.

* * *

So it seems like canon is never super clear on where the heck Tara is from. I picked Louisiana because that's the home state of the actor who plays her brother. *shrug* Also I've thought probably way too hard about how Angel's curse works, and this is the best technical explanation I could come up with for why happiness is a bad thing. I'm rather proud of it.


	5. The Calm

Buffy, Angel, and the White Hats kept close tabs on Darla and her minions for the following week, but they failed to discover what she was up to. The two fledglings Buffy managed to catch away from the Crawford Street mansion (which was now heavily guarded around the clock) hadn't known anything beyond that a couple of witches were involved. Whatever she was planning, she was running an extremely tight ship. There had actually been _fewer_ vampire attacks since her arrival.

Their inability to learn anything of value about Darla was unfortunately not offset by meaningful progress towards anchoring Angel's soul. So far, the books only reinforced Giles, Jenny, and Tara's hypothesis, and it seemed that no one had ever so much as attempted what they wanted to do. Jenny had devised a computer program to translate the text of the original curse, in case its phrasing held any answers for them, but that didn't bring them any closer to a solution. If they were going to succeed, it was starting to look like they were going to have to forge their own path forward.

Tara, who refused to entertain the idea of going back to Louisiana until she'd helped with the curse, had become at least an honorary member of the White Hats. She continued to stay with Buffy at her apartment, and Oz and Larry were both happy to meet her. Between Tara and Jenny, Buffy was enjoying not being the only girl in the group anymore. No vampires had tried to capture Tara again, so they'd eventually risked taking her to the hospital to get a real cast for her leg.

In the meantime, life in Sunnydale moved along as usual. The high school was abuzz with excitement over the Bronze's grand reopening, which would take place Friday night. Even Buffy wasn't entirely immune to the hype. The Bronze had once been the most popular hangout in town, before the Master rose and made it into his headquarters. Its triumphant return to its nightclub origins was a powerful symbol to everyone who'd survived the last two years that Sunnydale no longer belonged to the monsters.

†

Everything was going according to plan. As tedious as this ritual was, requiring a full week to complete all the various steps, by Friday afternoon, Amy and Michael (who, after two foiled escape attempts, was only still helping on threat of the torture and murder of his entire family) were finally close to completing it. Darla had been following their progress carefully in the spellbook, and they were now on the last page. Her anticipation building, she read along as they chanted the final Latin lines. The black candles arranged in in four circles (one for Amy, one for Michael, one between them, and a large one that enclosed the other three) suddenly roared high, and a rippling shadow, blacker than anything Darla had seen, formed in the innermost circle.

Amy stared around the room, then rounded on Darla. "This is the final step. You were supposed to bring offerings to bind the Naqraw's will to yours."

"I did," said Darla, smirking. She nodded to the two large vampires standing by the fireplace, and they swooped down on Amy and Michael, snatching the warding crystals from around their necks.

Amy's eyes went wide in horror. "NO!" she screamed, clawing at the vampire in a vain effort to retrieve the crystal. In the center circle, long, clawed hands emerged from the pool of impossibly black shadow. She hissed the words of a spell, but the ritual had sapped her magical power, so nothing happened. Michael was afraid and struggling too, though he didn't fully understand what was coming, but Darla's guard held him in place.

The creature emerging from the shadow portal, the Naqraw, crawled all the way out. It had a sinewy, elongated humanoid body with pale gray skin. Where eyes should've been, there was nothing but more of the gray skin, and the mouth was stretched in a wide, glistening smile full of far too many teeth. It moved towards Amy first. She screamed and fought the vampire holding her, but to no avail. The Naqraw stretched one long-fingered towards her. The second it made contact with her skin, her entire body glowed, but then the glow drained into the Naqraw, moving up its arm and settling into its chest, where it faded. As soon as it did, Amy went limp. Darla could still hear her heart beating, but she was unconscious.

The Naqraw turned to face Michael, who, now that he'd seen what happened to Amy, was struggling much harder. It reached for him, and the same process repeated. Michael's skin glowed briefly before the light drained into the Naqraw. Unlike Amy, when the creature finished with him, he remained conscious. He had stopped struggling, and his expression was utterly devoid of emotion. He looked at Darla.

"If we're done here, I'd like to go home now."

Darla stepped aside with a gracious gesture to the door. "By all means." The large vampire backed off, and Michael got up and walked out of the mansion.

The Naqraw was sitting on its haunches now, quivering slightly in apparent enjoyment of its meal. It turned its eyeless face to Darla. "I ammmm...bound to you, Mistress?" it said in a slithering voice to make the hairs on the back of one's neck stand on end. It didn't seem entirely happy about the situation.

"Yes," said Darla. "But I assure you, I intend to keep you well fed."


	6. Where Soul Meets Body

Buffy hadn't been alone with Angel since Tara's discovery the previous week, and she couldn't take it anymore. Just before sundown, she went to his apartment. The door opened before she could reach for the doorknob, and there Angel was.

"Buffy!"

"Angel." They both stood frozen in place for a few seconds. Buffy fidgeted with her long braid to keep herself from throwing her arms around him and burying her face in his chest. "Do you—"

"I—"

They both broke off with awkward smiles. "You go," he said.

"Do you want to come patrolling with me?" she asked.

"What about the Bronze's reopening?" he said, frowning.

"That doesn't start for a couple more hours. I guess you probably don't want to go to that, considering what happened to you there."

"No, I want to." His smile became warmer. "You've made a difference here, and the Bronze is the proof. I wouldn't miss it."

"I couldn't have done it without you," she said, a note of pleading in her voice.

Something tightened behind his eyes, making her heart sink, but it only lasted a moment, and then he said, "Where did you want to patrol?"

†

Amy came to with a groan. When she opened her eyes, she froze, confused. The last thing she knew, she'd been at home, cooking dinner for her and her mother because tonight was supposed to be the night Catherine finally came home from doing whatever spell she was doing for that blonde lady. Now, though, Amy was in a large, cement room she'd never seen before. It seemed to be empty apart from herself.

She sat up and looked around more urgently. There were curtains and an enormous fireplace. Unlit candles sat in circles on the floor, some of them surrounding her. Right in front of her, a book lay open. She reached out to touch it, then gasped and held her hand to her face. It was _her_ hand. She touched her face, her hair, her chest, and her eyes filled with tears. Somehow, the spell had broken. After two whole years, she was back in her own body. But how? Her mom wouldn't have done that on purpose, would she?

Amy looked back at the book on the floor. Maybe Catherine had done a spell that had backfired and reversed the body swap spell at the same time. It seemed like a good theory, but Amy couldn't be sure because the book looked like it was in Latin. She needed to know how this could happen, and to make sure she stayed put in her own body from now on. She grabbed the book and left the strange building.

Her first stop was home. Even though she was terrified of finding her mom there, she had to be sure. She slipped inside cautiously, then made her way towards the kitchen. The oven was still on, and smoke was beginning to curl from it, so Amy hastily shut it off. She turned and jumped violently, her heart hammering. "Mom?"

Catherine Madison was lying on her side in front of the china cabinet, unmoving. Amy approached even though her mind was screaming at her to run as far away from that woman as she could get. Catherine still didn't move. Amy reached out and shook her shoulder. "Mom?" Amy shook her hard enough that she fell over onto her back, which made her jump again. Catherine's eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. There was no life in them. Amy checked her wrist.

No pulse. Her mom was dead.

Amy felt a powerful wave of relief, followed by guilt. Surely it was okay to be happy that the woman who'd stolen her body was dead? But what the hell had happened? Amy didn't think she'd be able to enjoy her freedom until she knew for sure. There had to be someone she could ask. She wracked her brain. Her mom had been fairly free about ranting within earshot about anyone she disliked. In the beginning, it had been cheerleaders who were better at the sport than her. Most of the time, it had been her dad, but that had stopped so abruptly a few months ago that Amy feared she'd done something even worse to him than she'd done to her.

The one other person mentioned with any regularity had been the librarian at the high school, who didn't seem as gullible as all the other faculty members. He'd never done anything to provoke Catherine's wrath, but he'd come very close to it more than once. Amy would start with him.

†

Michael Czajak had been bullied for most of his life. He'd turned to the goth scene and witchcraft in his early teens as an escape. Somehow, it had never occurred to him to use magic against his tormentors. Had he been stupid? It would be so easy to make them pay. Maybe that's what that demon had done to him. Whatever it was, it hadn't killed or incapacitated him, so he didn't really care.

He approached the practice field behind the high school. The varsity football team was all out there, and it didn't take him long to identify two of his three primary targets under the helmets and gear. John Lee and Mitch Fargo. They would do for now. He would find Larry Blaisdell soon enough. Once he'd dealt with all of them, he could move on to the ones who'd let them get away with it.

He focused on John and Mitch. It was somehow much easier to gather his concentration than it used to be, and yet the magic was harder to summon. Magic had always been connected to his emotions, but those seemed harder to summon now too. He looked at John and Mitch. He remembered everything they'd done to him. Rage, pure and cold, welled up inside him.

In the middle of the play they were doing, both jocks suddenly stopped running. Their teammates were confused and annoyed at first, but then they were alarmed when they both started screaming and tearing frantically at their gear, which was growing visibly tighter.

The other boys began to yell too, and they surrounded John and Mitch, all trying to pull the strangling gear off them, but it resisted their efforts. Before long, all they could do was stand back in horror as their screams died off and they were crushed before their eyes.

Michael smiled, even though he felt rather drained. It would have been better to use spellcasting equipment to do that, rather than raw power, but it had been worth it. He spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and looked around. None other than his third target had just emerged from the locker room onto the field. Michael's smile widened, and he began walking straight for Larry.

Larry froze at the sight of the commotion amongst his team members, then looked at the rapidly approaching Michael. Considering how many times he'd been forced to do this idiot's homework for him in previous years, Michael was surprised when Larry actually seemed to realize what had happened and promptly turned tail and ran. He wasn't letting him get away that easily.

†

It was with relief that Amy reached the library and found that the librarian was actually in it, even though this was a Friday and classes had ended hours ago. He was sitting at the study table with a pretty dark-haired lady who was probably a teacher and a girl with a cast on one leg and long, light brown hair. He was the first to notice her. "Miss Madison," he said, getting up and standing between her and the table, as though trying to hide it from view. "Can I help you?"

"Um," said Amy. "You're Mr. Giles, right?"

He frowned. "Yes, as you should already know," he said.

The girl with light brown hair got up on her crutches and drew level with Mr. Giles, her eyes fixed on Amy. "What ha-happened to you?"

"I, uh, what do you mean?" said Amy nervously. "Look, I just came here because I was hoping someone could tell me what language this book is in. It's for a project."

"Let me see it," said Mr. Giles, holding out a hand.

Amy passed him the book, though she was starting to wonder if this had really been a good idea.

"I'm Tara," said the girl, her expression inviting and reassuring. "This is Miss Calendar," she added, indicating the dark-haired lady.

Amy smiled feebly. "I'm Amy."

"Erm, exactly what project would require you to have a book on summoning particularly nasty demons from other dimensions?" said Mr. Giles. Miss Calendar had gotten up too at this point, and all three of them were staring at Amy.

She blinked. "That's what it's about?" This was not at all the answer she had expected.

Mr. Giles's frown deepened. "Where did you find this book, Miss Madison?"

Amy looked from the librarian to the girl to the teacher and back, then swallowed. There really wasn't any point in lying. "It was on the floor in front of me when I woke up back in my own body in a creepy old mansion an hour ago," she said.

"Back in your own body?" repeated Miss Calendar.

Amy twisted her hands together behind her back, wishing she'd changed out of this stupid cheerleading uniform. "My mom wanted to relive her high school glory days, so, two years ago, she cast a spell to switch bodies with me."

Both adults looked appalled, but Tara's mouth fell open. "That's why," she said. "Your aura looks like it was ta-angled up in someone else's, but the traces are fading." Amy gave her a quizzical look. Was she a witch too? She seemed so nice, though.

"So you believe whatever spell your mother cast somehow caused the body-switching spell to end?" said Mr. Giles.

"That's all I can think of," said Amy, some of her anxiety leaving her. Even if Tara was a witch, they were all talking and acting like they were on her side. Maybe they really were. "Last week, this really scary blonde lady came to our house, and she and Mom talked about some spell she wanted done. Mom's been gone doing that spell ever since. If it worked, then I don't think it turned out the way she wanted it to, because I went back to the house after I woke up, and I found her body lying there, dead."

"The scary blonde lady didn't happen to look like this, did she?" said Miss Calendar, retrieving a piece of paper from the study table and holding it up for Amy.

"Yeah, that's her," said Amy, staring at the charcoal sketch in surprise.

"Darla," said Giles. He began flipping through the book Amy brought with far greater urgency.

"Then the creepy mansion was probably the same one where they were keeping Tara," said Miss Calendar.

"Oh dear," said Giles. They all looked at him. He looked up from the book. "I do believe I've solved the mystery of what Darla's been up to since she arrived."


	7. Game Boy Color

"You're thinking of leaving, aren't you?" said Buffy. She and Angel had already visited two cemeteries without incident, and now they were on their way to check the Crawford Street mansion for the dozenth time in the last week.

"If there's no way to fix the curse, then what choice do we have?"

"So, what, you help me make this town a place worth living in again, and then you don't actually get to live in it? How can you be okay with that?"

He put a hand on her arm to stop her walking so that he could look into her face. "I'm not okay with it," he said. "You know I'm not."

"Then why do you keep acting like you're ready to give up? We could still find a solution."

"Maybe." He did not sound optimistic. "In the meantime, I feel like a ticking time bomb."

"Well, unless ticking time bomb is a happy feeling, I don't really see the problem." She was finding it increasingly difficult not to vent her frustrations at him. Why wasn't he fighting for them? "Where would you even go?"

"Long term, I don't know. Short term, I think I want to do something about the reason Tara's stutter gets worse whenever the subject of her home comes up."

Buffy scowled. She'd noticed that about Tara too. But that was beside the point. "You being all heroic isn't going to make me feel better about this. All we have to do is be more careful."

"Careful that being with you doesn't make me too happy?" He touched her face, giving her a sad smile. "How exactly do we do that?"

The unfairness of the situation made Buffy want to scream. He was the best person she knew, and knowing that she was what made him happiest despite all her flaws and baggage should have been wonderful, except that him being happy apparently _wasn't allowed_. But instead of screaming, she grinned mischievously and started walking again. "Oh, I've got lots of ideas for that. I could start nagging you more, ogling other guys in front of you, showering less often…."

Angel laughed. It started out clear and full, but quickly turned bittersweet. Aaand she'd just unintentionally demonstrated their problem. Damn. She grasped for other solutions. "Okay, so maybe that wouldn't work, but we've been together for months, Council-induced intermission aside, and you've kept your soul through all of that. If we just avoid doing stuff we haven't already done, you should be safe."

"I don't want you to have to miss out on anything because of me."

"I can't miss what I've never had." Buffy almost wished she hadn't said it. She could feel herself blushing bright red. But she wouldn't take it back. As badly as she wanted him to make love to her and as difficult as it would be to never be able to make love to him, she would rather have whatever she could get with Angel than to so much as kiss anyone else.

They stopped walking again, and he gave her a long, searching look. "And you'd be happy then?"

"As happy as we're allowed to be. Angel, I don't care about the things you can't give me. It's not like you're withholding them out of spite. I felt dead inside before we met. You brought me back to life."

He leaned his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes and slid her hands up around his neck. "I love you," he said. "No matter what happens, that will never change."

She kissed him, and he kissed her back with a desperation he'd never shown before, like they were running out of time. She broke away first. "Come on," she said, a little unsteady. "We're almost to the mansion."

†

Before Giles could reveal the answer to the mystery to any of them, someone came bursting through the library doors, making all of them jump. It was Larry, in full football gear and uniform, utter terror on his face.

"Larry, what—"

"Giles, you gotta help me! That freaky goth kid, Michael, is after me. I'm pretty sure he just killed two of my teammates with a curse, and I think I'm next!"

"Girls, Miss Calendar, get behind the counter," said Giles, eyes on the library's double doors. "Larry, in my office." They all obeyed at once, and Giles walked around the counter too.

The doors swung open again not a second later, and a young man all in black, including makeup and jewelry, stalked inside. His eyes snapped to Giles. They were utterly devoid of mercy. "I know he's in here. Maybe if he shows himself, I won't have to hurt you for helping him."

"Mr. Czajak, the library is closed, and I'm the only one here," said Giles. "Whomever you're looking for, I'm sure you can find him on Monday during school hours."

"Wrong answer," said Michael. He raised a hand toward him menacingly, but before he could wield any dark magic against him, Larry emerged from the office, now free of the helmet and shoulder guards.

"Hey, man, whatever your problem is with me and the team, leave Giles out of it."

Crouching beside Giles, Tara peeked around the side of the counter, then abruptly drew back. Giles couldn't ask her what that was about without alerting Michael to her presence. Michael, meanwhile, grinned and aimed his outstretched hand at Larry instead. Larry's hands flew to his throat and he made a choking noise.

"What are you doing?" Giles shouted. "Are you mad?"

"This is payback," said Michael, ignoring Giles. "For all the years you and your friends beat me up, tripped me in the hallway, stole my stuff, and forced me to do your homework. It was quick for them, but I think I'm gonna make it slow for you."

Something tugged on Giles's pant leg, and he looked down. Tara was staring up at him, looking horrified. "He-he's empty," she whispered. "Still human, but hi-his soul is gone."

"Are you certain?"

She nodded vigorously, eyes wide.

Without another word, Giles seized the loaded pistol he kept beneath the counter (along with a crossbow, a sword, and a few other emergency weapons), took aim, and shot the young warlock directly between the eyes. Amy and Jenny both screamed, while Tara covered her head in her arms. Michael fell to the floor, dead, and Larry drew a shuddering breath, released from the choking spell.

†

The many guards who had made close recon impossible since they rescued Tara were now conspicuously absent. Buffy had a very bad feeling about this.

"There's barely any movement in there," said Angel, eyes narrowed. "And there's this weird beeping noise."

They moved in cautiously, but that turned out to be unnecessary. Inside the mansion, they found only one vampire, a gawky, dark-haired kid with a long face, and the beeping noise turned out to be coming from the Game Boy Color he was playing. Buffy and Angel approached him, eyebrows raised. The first time he glanced up from the screen was when they were ten feet away. His eyes widened, and he looked back at the screen, shrank in on himself, and tapped the buttons more furiously than before, as if they would leave him alone if he looked preoccupied enough with his game.

"Where's Darla, Jesse?" said Angel.

"The Bronze," he said. "At least, that's where she's going."

"And why aren't you there?" said Buffy, snatching the Game Boy out of his hands.

He snarled, his features shifting. "She wanted to make sure you knew that she was planning to take it back as a tribute to the Master, okay? She has a special surprise for you."

"What kind of surprise?" said Angel.

"How should I know? Lady barely talks to me, even though the Master sired me just like her. It's always the same story. Willow and Xander were his favorites, and I was just the guy who ran errands. Now they're all dead, and I run errands for Darla."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You realize that the more you can tell us, the longer you'll stay alive, right?"

"Fine, I'll tell you everything I know," he said, then snatched back the Game Boy and booked it out of the room.

Buffy couldn't remember a vampire encounter ever being that annoying before, but she didn't give chase. Jesse was far too small potatoes to be wasting her time on with Darla about to launch an attack on the Bronze. Judging from Angel's expression, he felt the same way. "We better get to the library to tell the others and gear up."

"Oz is already at the Bronze," Buffy realized, worried. "The reopening starts in half an hour."

"I'll head straight there and scope things out," said Angel.

Buffy nodded, and they went their separate ways. Buffy ran full speed all the way from the mansion to the school. Slayer strength, speed, and endurance notwithstanding, a car would've made this so much easier.

She kept running when she burst through the school's doors. On hearing the unmistakable sound of a gunshot coming from the direction of the library, she ran even faster. She skidded through the swinging doors in time to hear Jenny's shriek of, "God, Rupert, did you just shoot a student?"

The scene before her made her temporarily forget why she'd just spent the last quarter of an hour running. The goth kid in her English and Algebra II classes was lying sprawled on the floor in front of her, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Larry stood a few paces beyond him, massaging his throat and gasping for air. Giles was setting down the literal smoking gun while Tara, Jenny, and a girl Buffy was pretty sure was called Amy stood behind the counter beside him, all looking very shell-shocked.

"Yeah," Larry gasped. "Thanks for the save, but _damn_. Hey, Buffy."

"What the hell did I miss?" said Buffy faintly. "You killed this kid, Giles?"

"He was worse than dead already." Giles walked back around the counter and retrieved a book from the study table.

"What are you talking about?" said Jenny, easily the most upset of anyone in the room.

"Darla used Mrs. Madison and Mr. Czajak here to summon a Naqraw," said Giles, holding up the book and pointing at an illustration. "A soul-eater."

Buffy went cold with dread. "No."

"The summoning ritual takes a full week to complete and requires two casters," Giles went on. "Miss Maclay was likely meant to be one of them before you rescued her. Perhaps Darla wanted a witch with the natural ability to sense souls so that she could be sure the Naqraw did its job, but she settled for a substitute when Tara slipped through her fingers."

"So that's how I ended up back in my body?" said Amy. "Mom did this ritual, and then this thing sucked out her soul?"

"Indeed," said Giles. "Darla would've needed to feed two souls to the Naqraw straight away in order to bind it to her command, and there Michael and Catherine were, an easy meal for it. Once Catherine's soul left Amy's body, there was nothing stopping Amy's soul from returning to where it belonged. Catherine's body must have deteriorated from being paired with the wrong soul for so long, so it simply died when Amy vacated it."

"And now Darla's going to try to feed Angel's soul to the demon," said Tara.

"She and all of her minions weren't at the mansion when Angel and I got there," said Buffy, panic rising in her chest. As much as it sucked, she'd liked things much better when _she_ was the only threat to Angel's soul. "Just one guy who told us she was going to take back the town, starting with the Bronze. Angel went there alone to scope it out. He'll be a sitting duck. We've got to stop her!"

* * *

The Game Boy Color was released in the US in November of 1998, which couldn't be more perfect timing for this. Game Boy Vamp, while already my favorite minion vamp ever, wasn't originally going to be Jesse, but then it occurred to me that there was no reason he *shouldn't* be Jesse. So yeah. That was fun. :D


	8. The Battle of the Bronze

There was no sign of Darla or any other vampire at the Bronze, just a long line of excited patrons waiting for the bouncer to let them in. Angel wasn't sure if that was a good sign or bad. He went in the back. A couple dozen people were already inside, not counting the staff or the members of Dingoes Ate My Baby. He headed straight for Oz, who was tuning his guitar.

"Hey, Angel," he said around the guitar pick between his teeth. Then he removed it, brow furrowing. "Trouble?"

"Darla's on her way to crash the party. I'm surprised I beat her here."

"Probably waiting for a bigger crowd," said Oz darkly. "Battlestations?"

Angel nodded, and Oz walked over to talk with his fellow musicians. Angel turned around in time to see Jim, the owner of the club, hurrying towards him, which saved him the trouble of tracking the man down.

"Please don't tell me something's going on just when I'm getting this place off the ground again," he said. His history with this particular piece of property had certainly been a fraught one. He'd inherited it from the previous owner, his sister, when the Master's goons had murdered her.

"No such luck. The Bronze is about to be hit by a couple dozen vamps."

"Damn. Well, they ain't getting it back on my watch. My staff and I have a couple of surprises lined up for unwelcome guests. It's just too bad I'm still finishing the paperwork to get it legally listed as my secondary residence." He bent over the bar just long enough to retrieve something from behind it, which he then pressed into Angel's hands. It was an umbrella. "You're gonna need this. I'll go tell Tiny Tom to stop letting people in."

They barely had two minutes to get ready before vampires were pouring into the Bronze from all entrances, including the roof. Jim had supplied every human present with a stake and a large cross, and the vampires definitely hadn't expected that. Angel kept an eye out for Darla as he fought beside Oz, but they had stopped coming in and she didn't seem to be among them.

Even for all of Jim's preparations and the Dingoes' experience, they were hopelessly outmatched. Angel had dusted five of the vampires and Oz three, and several others had gone down as well, but Jim's cashier and two of the patrons unlucky enough to be let in early were now having the life drained out of them.

"ANGEL, NOW!" Jim shouted from across the club. He threw a switch, and Angel managed to get the umbrella up just in time. The fire sprinklers all went off, and every vampire in the club began to shriek in agony, their skin boiling. They tried to flee, but the exits had been barred. Within seconds, they had all been finished off with stakes.

The water shut off, and a cheer went up among all of the defenders even though many were hurt and two or three lay dead on the floor, but Angel knew something was wrong. He quickly found Jim. "How was _that_ for a grand reopening?" Jim said, slapping his shoulder.

"This isn't over," said Angel, and Jim's face fell.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't see their leader, and I'm guessing she only sent in at most half of her guys for round one to test the defenses. Is there enough holy water left for round two?

Jim shook his head.

"Then you all need to get out of here. I'm the one she wants."

"Okay, Angel, if you're sure."

"I am. You guys have done enough. Go."

Jim turned to face the rest of the club. "Alright, people, great job, but a second wave is coming and we've got to get out of here before they do. Consider the grand reopening postponed!"

†

Jenny had remained at the library with Tara and Amy, but Giles and Larry had come with Buffy to the Bronze, where they arrived to find the street full of panicked patrons fleeing in every direction. They didn't see any vampires until they reached the actual alley with the main entrance. Darla, wearing a blood red halter top, designer jeans, and knee-high black leather heels, marched opposite them at the head of more than a dozen vampires, as well as a pale, eyeless creature that crawled on all fours at her side. The Naqraw. The sight of it sent a shudder of bone-deep dread through Buffy, and she felt Oz and Giles recoil as well. As soon as she recovered, Buffy took aim with her crossbow and shot the thing right where a heart should be. It didn't so much as flinch. Its flesh rippled, and the fletched end of the crossbow bolt sank the rest of the way in, leaving no trace of a wound behind.

Darla smirked. "It's going to take more than a crossbow to stop my friend." She turned to her vampires. "Kill them," she said. "Subdue the Slayer and bring her inside." With that, all but three of her biggest vamps rushed forward, while she, those three, and the soul-eater made for the Bronze's entrance.

Buffy's scarred lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl, and she braced herself for the onslaught. She'd never fought this many at once before, but nothing would stop her from making it to Angel before the soul-eater did. However, the vampires were still several yards away when a small crowd of shouting people, all wearing crosses and brandishing stakes, burst from around the far corner of the building, Oz leading the charge. A few of the vampires remained facing the Slayer, but most turned to confront this new threat.

Even with the help of Oz's band and the Bronze's employees to even out the numbers, Buffy felt her panic growing by the second. She soon found herself fighting back-to-back with Oz. "Why are they still attacking if everyone left the club?" Oz yelled over the din of the battle, holding off a snarling vampire with a cross.

"They're not here for the reopening," said Buffy, side-kicking a vampire who'd just tried to grab her, sending him flying backward onto Larry's stake. "They're here for Angel."

"Why?"

"Darla summoned a soul-eater."

"Then let's get you in there to help him."

†

As soon as everyone else fled the Bronze, Angel got to work. The floor was still about a half-inch deep in holy water, so he grabbed latex gloves and as many clean rags as he could find from the back room.

The main entrance banged open less than three minutes later, and the first vampire through the door was met with a holy water-soaked washcloth directly to the face. The next two had better reflexes. They dodged the flying rags and rushed forward. Angel caught one with his shoulder and threw him. He made a sound like dough dropped into hot oil when he hit the floor, and his scream nearly raised the roof. Because the holy water had instantly soaked through his clothes, there was no escaping it, and he died within seconds.

Darla still hadn't done anything but shut the door behind them, and Angel's next move would've been to try to figure out her angle, but all his focus deserted him when he saw what was crouching at her side.

He'd never seen anything like it before and he had no idea what it was, but when it turned its eyeless face to grin at him, his entire being filled with paralyzing dread. The feeling only held him captive for a few seconds, but it was enough time for the uninjured vampire and the one who'd been hit by the holy washcloth to seize him by the shoulders in an inescapable grip.

Darla smiled and walked closer, her pace leisurely. The thing followed. "Mistressss," it said, a long string of saliva dripping from its wide, grinning mouth. The dread hadn't entirely faded, and Angel strained against his captors, desperate to put more distance between himself and it.

"Not yet," said Darla. "I want the Slayer to watch." She reached out to stroke Angel's skin, starting at the base of his neck and running up over the side of his face. He gritted his teeth. "My darling boy. I'd hoped to find you still under the redhead's heel. She would've made a fine gift once my pet was finished with you. Such insolence deserved a long, torturous death. But I think I'll enjoy watching you destroy the Slayer even more."

Horrible realization dawned. The reason Darla had left. She'd gone looking for a way to rid him of the soul she despised, and now she had it. Maybe it would've been better after all if Tara hadn't realized the danger Buffy posed. Surely that would've been the easier way to go. Then at least they both would've known happiness for a time.

Even though no situation had ever been less funny, Angel laughed. "Well done, Darla. I probably should've figured it out sooner. But what makes you think I'll stay with you? You know how I was about my obsessions. How do you know the soul is the only part of me that would choose Buffy over you?"

Anger twisted her face, but she quickly smoothed it away. "What makes you think I'll be leaving that up to you?" she shot back. "Either you kill your little rebound girl or I do, and I won't be allowing any last-minute changes to the plan like with Drusilla." She paused for a moment, then scowled over her shoulder at the door. "What's taking those idiots so long?"

Angel could hear the sounds of fighting outside in the alley, but the Bronze's walls made them too indistinct to be able to tell which side was winning. Sound turned out to be unnecessary, though, because just then, the door buckled inward and ripped free of its hinges, landing with a slap on the flooded floor and sending a spray holy water flying at all of them. The two meatheads holding Angel flung up their arms to cover their faces, and he immediately scrambled backward out of their reach.

Darla snarled like a feral cat at the sight of Buffy framed in the doorway. Some of the holy water had splashed her arm, but the snarl soon became a cackle. Buffy had come alone; the fighting continued outside. "Get away from him," said Buffy, brandishing a stake.

"You're too late, little Slayer. Naqraw, take him."

"NO!" Buffy screamed, sprinting forward. For Angel, everything seemed to be in slow motion. He dodged both vampires lunging after him, but the Naqraw moved like something out of a nightmare—no matter how fast you were, it was calmly able to outpace you. He slipped the butcher knife from the kitchen out of his sleeve and into his hand and slashed at the Naqraw's neck. The blade passed cleanly through sinew and bone and came out the other side. Instead of body and head dropping separately to the floor, the flesh resealed along the path of the cut almost as quickly as it had been severed, leaving no trace behind. Its smile widened and its long fingers stretched towards Angel's chest. It was barely a foot away when Buffy dove in between them.

He didn't see what happened next because there was a blinding flash of light, so bright that he would've taken it for sunlight if he hadn't known that was impossible. Buffy hit the floor with a splash and pushed herself right back up again, while the Naqraw let out an otherworldly screech of agony. The hand it had been reaching towards Angel was wrapped in brilliant golden flames, which raced up its arm, leaving the pale flesh charred in its wake. It reached the creature's chest and seemed to burrow deeper, then shot out to burn the rest of it. In mere seconds, nothing remained but a shriveled, black husk.

With Darla and her two minions still alive, there was no time to consider how the Naqraw's demise had come about. Buffy certainly wasn't taking time to consider it. Having clearly realized that the water on the floor was holy water, she knocked one of the remaining lunks' legs out from under him with a sweeping kick, condemning him to the same fate as his fellow.

Angel found himself grappling with the final minion, who put up a maddeningly good fight, making it impossible for him to aid Buffy against Darla. He could hear Darla slinging furious taunts between blows, but Buffy seemed to be fighting as she had when he first met her—focused and grimly silent rather than full of witty banter. At last, Angel managed to pin the vampire against a pillar and sank the butcher knife through his neck until it was buried in the wood behind him, and his ashes fell to soil the water on the floor.

Buffy and Darla seemed evenly matched, and Buffy still wasn't rising to any of Darla's taunts. "What does he see in you anyway but a pale imitation of me?"

Angel would've expected Buffy to retort with something about how if anyone was a pale imitation, it was the lady who hadn't seen sun in four centuries. But she only blocked Darla's punch with steely calm and retaliated with one of her own. Something was wrong. "How did you kill the soul-eater?" Darla demanded. "It was supposed to be unkillable!"

Darla was so enraged that she failed to notice Angel approaching from behind until he caught both of her upper arms in a vice-like grip. "You shouldn't have come back," he growled in her ear. "My soul isn't going anywhere."

She struggled and opened her mouth to speak again, but Buffy didn't give her the chance, driving the stake home. She paused to watch Darla's ashes drift down, then looked up at Angel. That sense of wrongness grew stronger as he looked into her eyes.

"That'll teach her to take what's mine." She caught Angel in a rib-cracking hug. "No one's taking you away from me." He pulled away quickly, before the water could soak into his clothes from off her skin.

"Come on," he said, "the others might still be in trouble."

But the fighting outside had ended too. Two more of the Bronze's employees lay dead, along with the Dingoes' drummer, but it was far from the massacre Darla had no doubt intended to welcome Angelus back.

Giles looked up from bandaging Jim's arm as Buffy and Angel approached. "Darla?"

"Dust," said Angel.

"What about the soul-eater?"

"Dead," said Buffy.

Giles frowned. "How? No mortal weapon can kill them."

Buffy shrugged. "It looks pretty dead. Go see for yourself."


	9. Lonely Ghosts

She stared around in confusion. She hadn't been here a minute ago, had she? It was difficult to be sure. She was having a hard time remembering...well, much of anything, and her surroundings weren't helping. She was standing in a gray wasteland. No plantlife broke the monotony of the landscape, the clouds overhead were like a single mass—too thick to see where the sun was—, and she couldn't see more than a few dozen yards in any direction because of a bank of fog.

Memories began to trickle in. Her mother's and father's faces. The home she'd grown up in. The images brought happiness, until she remembered finding their bodies inside that home. She grasped desperately for something different to focus on, but recoiled again under the onslaught of memories of fighting monsters, especially the one that had gotten close enough to slice her face open. Her lips burned with as if the wound was fresh instead of an old scar.

Then, she remembered the beautiful face of a man. A man who loved her. Angel. Except he wasn't a man. He was a vampire, and she loved him with everything in her. She looked down at her hands in surprise. They had begun to glow with golden light. Not just her hands—all of her. She remembered the stubbly, world-weary Watcher who had protected her and Angel, helping him hide from the Council. She remembered her friends. The short, red-haired guitarist. The burly football player. The kind girl with light brown hair who was happier on a Hellmouth than in her own home.

She was Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer. Everything else fell into place and the light coming from her skin grew much brighter, but she still couldn't figure out how she'd gotten here, not to mention why she was so shiny all of a sudden. The last thing she remembered was throwing herself between Angel and the soul-eater in the Bronze, and then everything had exploded in light.

"Hello?" she called. Her voice echoed over that gray wasteland far longer and louder than it should have. She shivered. What was this place?

†

Once paramedics and the coroner's team arrived to take care of the injured fighters and haul the bodies of the fallen to the incinerator in the morgue, Angel, Buffy, and the White Hats returned to the library, bringing the Naqraw's burnt corpse with them. Jim was already planning to try again with the reopening scheduled for the following Friday instead, considering that the Bronze was still in fairly good shape after the battle. It was less about optimism and more about a refusal to be cowed by circumstance.

The entire way back to the school, Angel couldn't shake the sense of wrongness he kept getting from Buffy. She hadn't released his hand the entire time since Darla turned to dust, but her touch was devoid of the usual tenderness. It was simply possessive.

At the library, Tara, Amy, and Jenny were still waiting, and Michael's body was gone. As soon as she saw Angel, Tara stared intently at him for about two seconds before leaping up on her crutches and coming over to him as fast as she could, then flinging her arms around him, the crutches falling to the floor. "You're okay!" she said. "I was so w-worried it would get you!"

"Yeah, I'm okay, Tara," said Angel, hugging her back. "The Naqraw's dead." He saw Buffy eyeing them warily, and he gently released Tara and helped her pick up her crutches.

"It's dead?" said Jenny, perplexed.

"And extra crispy," said Oz, helping Giles and Larry carry the thing inside. Jenny, Amy, and Tara all recoiled. The guys set it on the floor in the middle of the room.

"We're still not sure how that happened," said Giles, straightening up.

"Yeah, it just kind of burst into flames," said Buffy.

Tara stared at the Naqraw's body and shuddered. "Wh-what are we going to do about that?" she said.

"Well, we have to be sure it can't revive itself before we do anything," said Giles. "I'm afraid we'll have to leave it here to keep an eye on it. Hopefully we'll be finished with it before school hours on Monday."

"Fun," said Oz.

Buffy tugged at Angel's hand. He looked around at her, and she jerked her head in the direction of the bookstacks, a seductive smirk on her lips.

"Not now," Angel murmured. "We should help deal with this."

As quiet as he'd been, his words had drawn the gazes of Jenny and Tara, who were standing beside them. Tara frowned when she looked at Buffy, and then her eyes went wide. "No," she said.

"What?" said Buffy flatly.

"Your soul." Those two words confirmed Angel's worst fears.

"What are you saying?" said Giles, removing his glasses and polishing them hurriedly on a handkerchief. "The Naqraw got Buffy's soul instead of Angel's?"

Buffy didn't give any of them a chance to discuss it further, because she launched herself at the Watcher, a cold, murderous expression on her face.

Angel lunged forward and tackled her. "NO!" she screamed. "I won't let him kill me like he killed Michael!"

"Nobody's going to kill you!" said Angel. Everyone watched as Angel struggled to subdue the empty shell that had been the woman he loved.

"Why should I believe that?" she demanded. She fought him as hard as she'd fought Darla. Without her soul, all that mattered to her was her own continued existence, and she now believed he was a threat. He failed to block an uppercut to his jaw, which lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing to the floor. Buffy rounded on Giles again, but then she went rigid, trembled for a few seconds, and collapsed, revealing Oz holding a taser.

Angel got back up, blood streaming from his mouth, and stared at Buffy's unconscious form. This had happened to her because she'd been trying to protect him. They'd spent all this time focusing on how she was a threat to his soul, but it had never occurred to him that he might be a threat to hers. He let out a roar of rage and anguish and slammed his fist into the wall, then left the library before anyone could call him back.


	10. Destiny Derailed

The more Buffy looked around, the more she began to realize that she didn't seem to be alone here. She didn't know how she hadn't noticed them before. It wasn't fog all around her at all, it was people. They were just so gray and lifeless that they had blended together into an amorphous, fog-like mass at first glance. She approached one of them carefully, a tall, thin woman, with long black hair. The woman showed no reaction at all when Buffy waved a glowing hand in her face.

She moved on to another one. A short, round man with a walrus mustache. He didn't notice her any more than the woman had. She stared around. They were all like that. However, some of them looked a little better than others. They still had some color in them, or they turned their heads when she passed, but never anything more. One woman in particular, auburn-haired and old enough to be Buffy's mother, wasn't gray at all, though she did look like she was standing in deep shadow, even though there wasn't anything to cast one. She paid Buffy no attention, merely muttered to herself and twitched every few seconds. Buffy thought she caught the word "cheerleading" in the muttering, but the lady creeped her out, so she didn't stay by her for long.

"People! Can any of you hear me?" she yelled at the top of her lungs. The echoes this generated were nearly deafening.

"Who's there?" another voice answered, also echoing. It sounded like a teenage boy, judging from the slight crack on the second word.

"I'm Buffy Summers! Where are you?"

"Buffy? I remember..."

Buffy made her way towards the voice, wending her way around the gray people. Finally, she found him. He looked the same age as her. She squinted at him. She couldn't quite figure out who he was, though he was familiar. "What's your name?" she asked.

He frowned, evidently struggling to remember, just as she had. "Michael. My name's Michael." As soon as he said it, his faded coloring turned vibrant, and he began to emit a soft, silver glow.

"So this is what you look like without all that goth makeup," said Buffy, smiling. It didn't last long. "Wait, how are you still alive? I saw your body in the library."

"The library?" His expression was far less blank now. "The last thing I remember, I was doing a ritual for this vampire so she wouldn't murder my family. I helped Amy Madison summon this thing, and then it was coming towards me and I couldn't get away, and then...just this feeling of being drained. That stopped a few minutes ago and I could finally think again, and then I heard you yelling." The silver glow around him flickered, and his expression was fearful and confused.

"The Naqraw," said Buffy. "It took your soul." Realization dawned. "I jumped in the way when it tried to take Angel's, and now I'm here." She spun around, staring again at the gray people, then looked down at her own shining hands again. "I guess it got me too. This must be where the souls it consumes go." The light around her flickered too, and she tried not to let fear paralyze her at the thought that she'd been ripped out of her own body—not to mention what that body might be doing without her. "But we still exist. We still know who we are. If we can hold it together, maybe we can find a way out."

†

"I don't understand this," said Giles. "If it took Buffy's soul, then why is it dead? Souls are what it eats."

"Maybe it's because she's the Slayer?" Larry suggested.

"I don't think it works that way," said Jenny.

Tara was only half listening. Her attention was on the Naqraw's corpse. At first, there had been nothing to see but charred flesh and twisted limbs, but over the last hour since they'd brought it here, she'd started seeing more than that. There were lights inside it. The same as auras around beings with souls. Most were very faint and grayish. They kind of swirled, and the sheer number of them was staggering.

"I think the souls it eats are st-still in there," she said.

The others broke off their conversation. "What makes you say that?" said Jenny.

"I can see them. It's been feed-feeding off some of them for a really long time, but they're not gone."

"So it doesn't really digest them, it just uses them like batteries?" said Oz.

There was a groan from the book cage, making them all jump. Soulless Buffy was waking up. She groaned again, then pulled herself painfully to a sitting position, fingers laced through the wire lattices. She glared balefully at all of them. "You think this cage will hold me?" She pulled herself the rest of the way up and wrenched at the door. It barely moved at all, and she looked horrified.

"I'm quite confident that cage will hold you for as long as we want it to," said Giles. "I gave you a drug the Council meant me to use for a rather ghastly test of theirs. Functionally, you are not currently the Slayer."

"I'm gonna add that test to the list of things I never want to ask you about," said Oz, while Buffy snarled with rage and made another pointless attempt to break open the door.

"I can't believe stuff like this was going on the whole time I was in my mom's body," said Amy.

"Buffy," said Jenny. "We need to know how the Naqraw died. How did it get your soul?"

Buffy gave Jenny a look of deepest loathing, but clearly realized that her best chance at freedom was cooperation. "It was about to get Angel, and I jumped in the way. It touched me, and then there was all this bright light, and it burst into flames and died."

"Of course!" said Giles. Everyone looked at him. "Don't you see? This is the same principle that Tara helped us discover last week. Souls are stronger when they're full of love. There's no greater act of love than sacrificing oneself for another, which is exactly what Buffy did."

"Then, if the Naqraw uses souls as batteries," said Jenny slowly, "Buffy's soul, taken in that way, must have overloaded its entire system."

"Can we get her back out?" said Larry.

"It might be possible," said Giles. "We'll have to be extremely careful how we go about it, though." He sounded like he was trying not to get his hopes up.

Tara's own hopes had no such trouble. "I think we can," she said. "It's dead, so it's not feeding off the souls anymore. They're just trapped. A-as long as Buffy's body is still alive, her soul should snap right back in place like Amy's did. We just need to free her."

Giles turned to look at soulless Buffy. "How does that sound to you?"

"I don't care, as long as no one shoots me in the head," she said, sitting back down. "You did lock me up with all the weapons, though, so if anyone comes near me with more of those drugs or a taser, you're dead." A shiver ran through everyone in the room. Nobody doubted she meant it.

"What happened to needing speed and strength?" Larry muttered.

"Turns out having sharp objects trumps both," said Oz.

†

Angel had spent most of the night aimlessly wandering, as if he could escape the reality that Buffy's soul was gone if he walked far enough. He crossed paths with a pair of fledglings, both of whom he killed within seconds.

Eventually, he returned to the apartment. For the third time in under two weeks, someone was already inside. Angel was even less happy to see this particular uninvited guest standing there than he had been to see Darla. "What the hell are you doing here, Whistler?"

"What do you mean, what am I doing here? I've been paying the rent on this place for two years."

"Yeah. Two years. You pick me up out of the gutter so I can spend two years getting tortured when Buffy doesn't even move to Sunnydale like you said she would, and then she finally does and things start getting better, only for her have her soul sucked out protecting me."

"None of that was how it was supposed to happen," said Whistler, shaking his head. "Someone threw a spanner in the works, and all we can do is deal with it."

"All we can do is deal with it?" Angel repeated. He threw his armchair out of his way and slammed Whistler against the wall by the throat. "You're telling me destiny got derailed, and we're just supposed to soldier on?" he shouted through fangs. "Was this the person you wanted me to become?"

"What, did you think being one of the good guys and loving somebody are all hearts and rainbows?" said Whistler, calmly removing Angel's hand from his throat and dropping back to the floor.

"You sent me to help Buffy. I didn't think I would leave her worse off than she was before I met her."

"What about you? Are you worse off?"

Angel wanted to knock Whistler's teeth in. What did it matter if he had grown as a person when his presence had led to Buffy's destruction? "Why did you come back?" he said, refusing to acknowledge Whistler's questions.

"To make sure you don't do anything stupid."

"Like what?"

Whistler chuckled. Angel gritted his teeth.

"You know, I've always hated the end of _Romeo and Juliet_. If Romeo had just waited a few hours instead of overreacting, everything would've been fine."

"Nice analogy, only Buffy wasn't put into a death-like sleep. Her soul was eaten. Everything that made her the person she was is gone."

"Yeah, but you still have yours, so use it!" said Whistler, scowling. "You're not Willow's puppy anymore. You've gotta deal with this habit you have of rolling over and taking it when the worst-case scenario happens, or this will always be a world of worst-case scenarios for you." He headed for the door.

"That's it?" said Angel. "What, no new assignment?"

Whistler chuckled. "Oh, the guys upstairs aren't done with you yet. You can be sure of that. But one thing at a time." On that infuriatingly ambiguous note, he left.


	11. Joy and Love

Figuring out a way to free souls from inside a dead soul-eater was proving difficult, as there didn't seem to be any existing spells specifically designed for it and this might be the first time one of the creatures had actually been killed. Jenny suggested trying a spell to retrieve what was lost, but Giles felt that would be too vague and could have unintended consequences. Larry tried the more direct approach of stabbing the soul-eater to let the souls out like air out of a balloon, but neither his knife nor anything else he tried could pierce its skin. It appeared to be an impenetrable container, even in death.

Tara watched the souls swirling around inside it. They were definitely becoming brighter, more active. And more than once, she'd seen flashes of brilliant gold amid the grayer lights. That had to be Buffy. "Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," she said. "All those souls—they're just moving at random, b-bouncing off the edges. If they all moved towards the same spot, they might be strong enough to break through. I think we need to give them a single point to focus on, and they'll be able to do the rest."

"How do we do that?" said Oz.

"With something souls are drawn to," said Giles, giving the computer teacher a significant look.

"An Orb of Thesulah," said Jenny, eyes widening. "They're designed to attract souls the same way a soul's living body does. A bunch of displaced souls would head straight for one if it was close enough."

"So how do we get one of these Orb things?" said Amy.

"I believe I have one at my flat, actually," said Giles, getting to his feet. "I've been, er, using it as a paperweight. I'll be right back."

†

"Okay, that might be one of our problems solved," said Oz once Giles was gone. "But what about Angel's curse?"

"I'm not sure what we can do about that," said Jenny. "Even if there was a way to stick his soul on tighter, we might end up going too far in that direction. What if he were staked, and his soul was still bound to the remains? It could destroy him. It might be too big of a risk."

"So you'd rather risk other people dying if he loses it?" asked Larry. For the last several minutes, he'd been trying to see how long he could spin a quarter on the surface of the table. Oz watched it wobble and settle onto its side. Heads: 8.

"She has a point," said Tara. "E-even if Angel loses his soul and kills again, his victims' souls would be intact. It would be wrong to destroy a soul to-to save lives that may not even be in danger."

"Angel wouldn't care what it takes to not put other people in danger," said Larry.

"That doesn't mean we should do that to him," said Tara. The coin fell again. Tails: 11.

Oz frowned. "I think we've been looking at this the wrong way too," he said. He looked up at Jenny. "The curse tried to bottle lightning, so maybe it's not about making the curse stronger. If you don't want it to fry when Angel's happy like what happened to the soul-eater, you just need to make it more flexible. Add a surge protector."

Jenny stared at him. "That...that might actually work," she said. "It would have to be something his soul is drawn to already, though, and another Orb of Thesulah wouldn't do the trick."

Larry snorted. "Come on, even I know the answer to that one."

†

Angel reached the library at the same time as Giles. He was about to apologize for punching a hole through the wall, but Giles didn't give him the chance. "Oh, Angel, I'm glad you're here," he said. "Saves the bother of calling." He held up a crystal sphere. "We may have worked out a way to get Buffy's soul back in her body."

"What do you mean?" said Angel. Could it be possible? He'd only returned because he owed it to Buffy to fight for her until he was completely sure nothing could be done, but he hadn't really believed there would be a solution.

"Well, let's find out if it works," said Giles.

Angel followed him inside, flinching at the sight of soulless Buffy sitting in the book cage, her cold, empty gaze fixing on everyone there in turn, then lingering on him.

"The Orb of Thesula," Giles announced, holding up the sphere, which glowed a little.

"So...do we just set it on the Naqraw's chest, or what?" said Oz as everyone moved to gather around the corpse.

"I suppose that's as good a place to start as any," said Giles.

†

They still hadn't found anything to indicate a way out, but gradually, the other souls around Buffy and Michael regained their color. Some even began to emit light in various colors, and grew proportionally more aware of their surroundings as they did. The landscape, too, became less gray. The cracked soil darkened and softened under the feet of anyone who glowed, and actual grass was springing up under Buffy's. They were all getting stronger. Buffy was glad; that would probably make it easier for them to escape once they figured out how.

As if on cue, something materialized in the distance. A white orb, as large as a person, hovered about a foot off the ground. It didn't emit any light of its own, but rather caught all of theirs. Buffy ran towards it, Michael and the other glowing souls following in her wake. They passed the auburn-haired woman, who was still muttering to herself and covered in that odd shadow.

Buffy and the others reached the sphere. "I think this is our way out of here," she said. She reached for it and her hands met warm crystal. She felt a tugging sensation from it, but it was faint. She thought of Angel and everyone else she wanted to get back to. The light coming out of her burned brighter, and the pull from the orb grew stronger. That was it. All around it, the other souls began to imitate her. It shone like a multicolored opal with the light it pulled from them.

 _Angel. Giles. Oz. Larry. Tara. Angel. ANGEL._ The light built until it was all she could see, and then a shockwave burst outward. She could feel every soul in the wasteland get sucked through the orb along with her.

†

The library exploded with light. Balls of it in every color imaginable, some brilliant, some dim, came bursting through the Orb of Thesula and shot in every direction. Just like in the Bronze, Angel was surprised he wasn't bursting into flames. The brightest one of all, like a ball of golden fire, flew straight across the room and into soulless Buffy. Her whole body lit up with it from the inside, and it sent ripples through her hair and clothing.

Angel wasn't even aware of his legs moving until he was ripping the book cage open and gathering Buffy up in his arms. The glow faded, and she was laughing and crying and kissing him while he spun her around. How could he have thought of leaving her? He was never letting her go.

They stopped kissing and Angel set Buffy back on her feet in time for them to see the Naqraw's corpse, now empty of its trapped souls, crumble into ash. Buffy squeezed Angel's hand, then went to hug everyone else in turn. "I'm sorry I tried to attack you," she said when she reached Giles. "Thanks for not shooting me in the head."

"I am profoundly grateful that I didn't have to," said Giles hoarsely.

"I'm sorry for plotting your gruesome death as payback for the taser," she told Oz.

"No worries," he said. The emotion missing from his face and tone was all present in the tight squeeze he gave her. Larry's hug lifted her off her feet, but Tara's was the longest.

"You don't have to go back to Louisiana, do you? I don't want to wait until college before I see you again."

"M-m-my family—" Tara stammered.

"You are eighteen, yes?" Giles interrupted.

Tara nodded.

"Well, then surely, as an adult, where you go is up to you. You should be able to finish your high school career at the school of your choosing."

Tara's eyes filled with tears, and she hugged Giles too.

"Your family must suck if you prefer this place," said Larry. Oz and Amy both elbowed him in the ribs. "Ow! What, I want her to stay too, okay?"

"What about you, Miss Madison?" said Giles. Buffy had returned to Angel's side and was leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Oh!" said Amy, reddening and shrinking a bit in her seat. Like Jenny, Buffy didn't know her well enough yet for her to be part of the hug brigade. "I don't know. I don't have any family left. Mom made sure of that. And I don't really want to go back to my house again. Ever. "

"Then that's easy," said Buffy. "You and Tara can have my apartment, and I'm moving back in with Angel."

"Buffy, what?" said Angel, alarmed. "We can't—"

"Not yet, I know," she said, cutting him off. She flashed him the biggest smile he'd ever seen from her. "But I wasn't just plotting everyone's deaths while my soul was stuck in that thing, I was also listening."

* * *

Just the epilogue left!


	12. Epilogue

It took another week before the White Hats (who now officially included Tara, Amy, and Jenny) figured out how to implement Oz's idea of using Buffy as a surge protector for Angel's curse, and it took almost that long again for Buffy to persuade Angel that it was really what she wanted. The ritual was not unlike a wedding ceremony. That was perfectly fine by her, as she meant to hold onto him and never let him go. Figuring out how to make it legal was a formality, as far as she was concerned. She wore a yellow sundress and let Tara and Amy weave tiny flowers into her hair, and Angel surprised her by bringing a pair of matching Irish rings.

According to Tara, as soon as the ritual was done, beams of light had shot from Angel's soul to Buffy's, and they stayed in place no matter where either of them stood in relation to the other. Even though Angel was as happy as he'd been since Tara met him, there were no longer any signs that the cords binding his soul to his body were fraying.

The couple had their next confirmation that it had worked before they even made it into their apartment. They were already kissing furiously and tugging at each other's clothes when they got the door open, and then Buffy tumbled ungracefully inside while Angel found himself caught on the threshold.

"What—?" said Buffy, rather disgruntled.

"Would you care to invite me into your home?" said Angel, eyes bright with happiness.

Buffy got to her feet, her irritation vanishing. Even as long as they'd stayed there together before the Council's inspection, she'd never had to invite him in. She smiled and held out her hand to him. "Come in, Angel."

He took her hand and stepped inside.

* * *

This epilogue wasn't part of my original outline for the fic. I was originally just going to leave off with the prospect of fixing Angel's curse, but this insisted on being written too. I like that it shows how far Wishverse Buffy has come from the friendless lone soldier she was when she first arrived in Sunnydale, and that it brings everything full circle by ending at the basement apartment.

If you're wondering how a Wishverse story could have such a happy ending, well, two things. One, I'm nearly incapable of writing sad endings to Buffy/Angel fics. Two, and more importantly, the Wishverse, to me, is a timeline of greater entropy than the main Buffyverse timeline, not necessarily a timeline that's always darker. The lows will certainly be lower, but the highs will also be higher, and equilibrium tends to be harder to maintain.

I hope you liked it! This fic has been sitting half-finished but fully outlined on my hard drive for two years. In addition to the Buffy/Angel stuff, it was an interesting change to write the White Hats instead of the normal Scooby gang, which I didn't really do in "Windows to the Soul." I feel like they have more of an Angel Investigations vibe than a Scooby one, what with how dedicated they are to the mission and how normal it is to them to fight monsters.

Please let me know what you thought!


End file.
